Jerry Brown: 74 and going strong

Once one of California's youngest governors, Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr. is now the oldest to ever serve in state history.

Saturday, he gets a little bit older.

Jerry Brown turns 74 this weekend and, to hear his staff tell it, there's nothing planned for the big day. Spokesman Gil Duran says the governor will be quietly spending time with his family in the Bay Area. One would surmise that includes his wife, First Lady Anne Gust Brown, and his beloved-by-all Corgi, Sutter.

Last year, he spent the big day at the state Capitol, where his staff threw him a surprise party... which they then promptly uploaded to YouTube.

For those who haven't seen the governor in action, it's worth pointing out that he doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

Other than an apparently isolated incident of a lesion on his nose in 2011 from sun exposure, Brown seems awfully fit. Just ask former Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Rothfeld, who was challenged to a pull-up contest by then candidate Brown in the spring of 2010.

Let's put it this way: Brown didn't lose.

Jerry Brown is currently the oldest incumbent governor of any state. And for most of this first/third term in office (depending on how you count his role as both the California's 34th and now 39th governor), he's been the oldest ever to serve California.

The late Governor Frank Merriam was the only other septuagenarian chief executive of the state, turning 73 just before leaving office in 1935.

So how long will he keep it up? It should be noted that Governor Brown has been coy about whether he intends to run for another term in 2014... but that's not to say that he's giving any hints that he'll pack it in once this four-year term is over. In recent weeks, in fact, he's picked up the pace of raising money into his 2014 re-election campaign account.

And as the governor has told both reporters and audiences around the state, he's enjoying the job... and longevity runs in his family.

His father, the iconic late Governor Pat Brown, lived to be 90. And when taking the oath of office last January, Jerry Brown pointed out his aunt in the audience, who later died at the age of 99.

"Those of you who are hankering after my job, it may be a while," he told the audience that day. "So relax. God willing, the genes are good."